Kua O Kala Charter School Relocation

A Joint Rotary Club Project

Rotarians, families, friends, students, and contractors gathered this past weekend to restore a building at Nani Mau Gardens for students to continue with their education. The Kua O Kala Charter School was destroyed by the lava flows in lower Puna. This building at Nani Mau needed very serious restorative work because of the extensive termite damage over the years, a joint club project was coordinated by the Rotary Club of Pahoa Sunset to get the job done!

There is still a lot of work to be done and we encourage members to kokua on the weekend of August 4th and 5th. School starts the next day. James Tyrin will provide details of what more needs to be done before this weekend. This is a great way to have a fulfilling and fun weekend.

Here's Richard Cunningham battling the mold and mildew with the handy-dandy 2900 psi pressure washer. A couple of hours later, everything he removed landed on his body from top to bottom, but the smile never went away! Richard was one of two pressure washer blasters who got the eaves, outside walls, sidewalks, doors, and light fixture diffusers sparkly clean.

Here's me, Alan Okinaka, getting ready to clean and prep one of the rooms. Little did I know how much cleaning and prepping would be required, but the smile never went away!

This is one of the rooms that received a lot of attention. Bending and scraping is unkind to backs young and old, so sitting helped. I kept thinking of how it will look when the room is filled with students!

This is the other side of the same room being prepped. After two hours of work, it really felt like things were coming together and everyone started to smile. Did I tell you there were a lot of mosquitoes? When you volunteer to kokua this coming weekend, lather your exposed areas with insect repellent.

Here we are getting one of two tents up. These tents were needed to protect the equipment and material used by the contractors to restore windows and walls of the building. I never helped to raise one of these tents before, and I learned that it really takes a lot of team work, with at least one person who knows what to do. He barked, we followed, and the tent went up. Magical!

James Tyrin, coordinator of volunteers from our club, took all these photos and he failed to take a selfie, so he is notably absent. Kim Keahialola was also there prepping one of the rooms, but had to leave early, and James didn't get her in one of the photos.

So, as I mentioned earlier, please come out and kokua to get this project completed before August 6th. Education is one of Rotary's Area of Focus, and this project demonstrates our commitment to this focus.